I’ll be honest with ya, for years I thought Muscle Shoals
was simply the name of a recording studio not an actual location on a map.
Tucked away down in Alabama with a population of around 8,000, the place is
synonymous with the full-fat, funky sound cut deep in the grooves of classic
60s soul sides and beyond.
Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s film tells the story of the small
city’s rich musical heritage through contributions from artists who recorded in
the otherwise tranquil surroundings of trees, swamp and dirt roads at both FAME
(Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios
within a splash of a gator’s tail from the Tennessee River. An impressive roll
call of talking heads (most filmed for the movie with occasional stock footage
spliced in) takes their turn to pay tribute: Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter,
Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Wilson Pickett, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Stevie
Winwood, Jimmy Cliff, Candi Staton etc. All these and more recorded in Muscle
Shoals but why the irrelevant Bono gets his slappable, sanctimonious face on
screen without having any connection I known of – physically or spiritually - to
the place is never explained. It’s a shame that for all the greatness contained
within the 111 minutes it’s the image of Bono’s ego wrestling limelight away
from the film’s intended focus which lingers most unnecessarily.
Muscle Shoals
covers a wide base and therefore individual stories are kept brief. A lot, like
Jerry Wexler at Atlantic sending new signed Aretha - a yet to be crowned Queen
of Soul hitherto fumbling around for direction - down south and coming back with
“I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” with the help of Spooner Oldham’s
chord sequence, followed by five albums of hits, or Leonard Chess packing off Etta
James during a lean period to be rewarded with “Tell Mama” and “I’d Rather Go
Blind” are well known vignettes but the main focus isn’t on the established
acts whose names appeared in bold letters on record labels but the guys like
producer Rick Hall and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section house band, nicknamed
the Swampers, who were lucky to make the small print.
Rick Hall is the central figure and his musical highs are
offset by his candid disclosure of personal hardship and family tragedies. He’d
cut Arthur Alexander’s “You’d Better Move On” in ’61 and followed it with
another hit, Jimmy Hughes’s “Steal Away” recorded in his FAME studio. From
there the hits kept coming, due in large part to his meticulous approach and
the distinct yet adaptable sound of the Swampers, built around a nucleus of
Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Roger Hawkins (drums), Barry Beckett (keyboards) and
David Hood (bass). Muscle Shoals
shines a light on these musicians and gives them a voice in the same manner Standing In The Shadows Of Motown did
for the Funk Brothers in Detroit.
That Rick Hall (who now sports a very stylish and covetable
moustache) and the Swampers were Southern white guys playing in such a gritty
soul style – even helping to define soul music itself– was a source of regular surprise.
A sceptical Wilson Pickett wondered of Rick Hall, “What does this white man
know about the blues?” before clocking the cotton picking fields outside FAME
and leaving with “Land of a 1000 Dances”, “Mustang Sally” and all his other
smashes tucked in his bad ass pocket. Even Aretha – all dolled up, plonked on a
chair and filmed from the other side of an empty room as if the bailiffs have
removed the rest of her possessions – recounts her shock of how “greazy” the
Swampers were; disproving the notion Caucasians ain’t got no rhythm.
In 1969 Hall struck a deal to work for Capitol Records.
Meeting the Swampers to share the good news they suddenly announce they’re
quitting and setting up their own studios with the help of Wexler and the
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios is born. After picking himself off the floor Hall assembled a new band, The Fame Gang,
and in effect the music world got two for the price of one although both would
diversify into fields outside the soul patch.
Within two years Rick Hall was crowned Producer of The
Year and his rivals, after a slow start, got a huge boast to their fortunes
after Keith Richards’ snakeskin boots led the Rolling Stones into town to cut “I
Gotta Move”, “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses”. A member of the Swampers now insists the Stones – in 1971 remember – were
model professionals and weren’t indulging in any drink or drugs; Keith and Mick
(good value throughout) both have a cheekily smirk at such a claim. Such was
the apparent naivety of the Muscle Shoals musicians Stevie Winwood says Traffic
felt guilty taking them on tour with them and exposing them
to certain (unnamed) practices.
A squillion recordings have taken place since then – some
massively successful, others less so – and Hall and the Swampers have kissed
and made-up. Muscle Shoals is
ultimately a feel-good movie with a brilliant soundtrack - what I like most about films like this is how they breathe fresh life into familiar songs - and one which puts helps
put firmly fix Muscle Shoals to the musical map for many more years to come.
Muscle Shoals is in selected cinemas now.
Muscle Shoals is in selected cinemas now.
